RoboCop 2 (film)
RoboCop 2 is the 1990 sequel to the blockbuster hit RoboCop. Directed by Irvin Kershner of The Empire Strikes Back fame, RoboCop 2 sends the cyborg into an even more violent world, as OCP begins its hostile takeover for the birth of Delta City, and there is a new narcotic drug called "Nuke", distributed by a man called Cain. Plot Robocop is slowly coming to grips with the loss of his former life as Alex Murphy. Though he attempts to reach out to his faimly, he eventually realizes he can never return to them. When he finally sees his wife, he tells her that the face was placed on him to honor her husband. OCP's current plans also come into focus: they attempt to have Detroit default on its debt, so that OCP can forclose on the entire city, take over the city government, demolish the old city, and put up a planned community development, Delta City, in its place. As part of this plan, OCP forces a police strike by terminating their pension plan and cutting salaries. As RoboCop is property of OCP and cannot strike, this measure increases his duties as the city sinks further into chaos and terror. Meanwhile, the Security Concepts division of OCP continues to sink millions into the development of a more advanced "RoboCop 2". However, each project ends in disaster; once the officers realize what they have become, they immediately turn suicidal. They deduce that Murphy only survived because of his exceedingly strong sense of duty, and his moral objection to suicide as an Irish-Catholic. The scientists decide they need someone similar, like a criminal with a desire for power and immortality, regardless of the cost. Throughout the city, a new designer drug named “Nuke” has been plaguing the streets. The primary distributor, Cain, believes that Nuke is the way to paradise, and is obsessed with power. He is assisted by his girlfriend Angie, his still-juvenile apprentice Hob, and Officer Duffy, a corrupt police officer. Having learned of Cain's involvement with Nuke from Duffy, RoboCop confronts him and his gang at an abandoned construction site. However, RoboCop is rendered immobile and disassembled; the pieces are then left in front of the Detroit Police Station. OCP, reluctant to foot his massive repair costs, ignores his fellow police officers insistence that he be repaired. RoboCop is saved when Dr. Juliette Faxx, an OCP psychologist, takes charge of the new RoboCop team. She argues for his importance as a figure of the community, and creates a list of over 300 new directives to be added to his program. Murphy is ultimately powerless to refuse the new commands, and is rendered unable to take aggressive action against criminals, even to defend himself. After the original RoboCop team explains what to do about this, Murphy shocks himself with a power cable to erase all of his directives. He then leads the striking officers off the picket line to attack Cain's hideout. Cain is badly injured in the battle and is taken to the hospital. With Cain immobilized, Hob takes control. Faxx, having decided that Cain is perfect for the RoboCop 2 project, arrives at the hospital and switches off his life support. Later, while displaying the new RoboCop 2 (Cain) to the head of OCP, Faxx demonstrates how he may be pacified through a canister of pure Nuke. Meanwhile, Hob arranges a secret meeting with the Mayor, offering to bail out the city's debt to OCP, but only if he agrees to a hands-off policy regarding the distribution of Nuke. Since this would hinder OCP's attempts to take over the city, they send RoboCop 2 in to kill everyone. While the mayor escapes through a sewer drain, all attendants, including Hob, Angie and two city councilmen, are slaughtered. RoboCop arrives late, only in time to find and comfort a dying Hob, who tells him about what happened. During the unveiling of Delta City and Robocop 2 at a press conference, the OCP President unwittingly presents a canister filled with Nuke. Cain escapes control, destroying the control device that arms his weapons, and opens fire on the crowd. RoboCop arrives, and the two cyborgs battle throughout the building, eventually falling off the roof and into an underground facility. As the rest of the police force arrives and engages Cain, RoboCop heads back to the OCP building to get the canister of Nuke. Upon seeing the canister, RoboCop 2 immediately ceases fire and takes it. While distracted, RoboCop jumps onto his back, punches his way through to Cain's brain, and crushes it. The Chairman of OCP, executive Johnson, and OCP lawyer Holzgang discuss the companies liability for the massacre, and decide to scapegoat Faxx, claiming that she acted without company support in designing RoboCop 2. Lewis complains about how the OCP executives will escape legally unscathed, but RoboCop reassures Lewis and tells her to be patient. Production RoboCop 2 was directed by Irvin Kershner from a script by Frank Miller and Walon Green. After the success of The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller was contacted by producer Jon Davison about writing a sequel to the Davison-produced box-office smash RoboCop, directed by Paul Verhoeven. Miller enthusiastically accepted the offer, eager to make an impression in Hollywood the way he had in comics the past decade. However, Miller's script was labeled "unfilmable" by producers and studio executives. His script was heavily changed through rewrites, and drastically re-written into what became RoboCop 2. Even when his tenure as screenwriter was officially over, Miller showed up on set everyday, eager to learn all about the movie-making process from start-to-finish. He was even given a cameo as "Frank the chemist." His original screenplay for RoboCop 2 took on an almost "urban legend" status and his original script for RoboCop 2 was later turned into a nine-part comic book series called Frank Miller's RoboCop. Critical reaction to the comic adaptation of the Miller script were mixed to negative. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gave the comic a "D" score, criticizing the "tired story" and lack of "interesting action." A recap written for the pop culture humor website I-Mockery said, "Having spent quite a lot of time with these comics over the past several days researching and writing this article, I can honestly say that it makes me want to watch the movie version of RoboCop 2 again just so I can get the bad taste out of my mouth. Or prove to myself that the movie couldn't be worse than this." RoboCop is again played by Peter Weller, who played RoboCop in the first film. However, although a second sequel and a television series were made, this was the last time Weller played the role, due to complaints of how cumbersome and exhausting it was to wear the suit and also because Weller found RoboCop 2 to be a very negative and disappointing film to work on. He complained about some scenes not making into the final cut, "There was a couple of things that made the character more human that weren't used. I can't remember exactly what the scenes were, I just remember wondering why they weren't in." These deleted scenes have never been included on home video releases. Weller's co-star, Nancy Allen, also had negative feelings regarding the second film. Despite not being directed by Paul Verhoeven, the director of the first film, RoboCop 2 contains many of his hallmarks, such as satirical television commercials (such as for an ultra powerful sunblock to deal with the devastation of Earth's ozone layer which is actually carcinogenic) and ironically upbeat news broadcasts, hallmarks which also appear in Verhoeven's later film Starship Troopers. The events in the second film closely follow the events in the first film (the ED-209 unit, for example, is mentioned as being deployed and malfunctioning). Cast *Peter Weller as Alex Murphy/RoboCop *Belinda Bauer as Dr. Juliette Faxx *Dan O'Herlihy as The OCP President "Old Man" *Felton Perry as OCP Vice President Donald Johnson *John Glover as MagnaVolt Salesman *Mario Machado as Casey Wong *Leeza Gibbons as Jess Perkins *John Ingle as Surgeon General *Tom Noonan as Cain/RoboCop 2 *Roger Aaron Brown as Whittaker *Willard E. Pugh as Mayor Marvin Kuzak *Gabriel Damon as Hob *Galyn Görg as Angie *Mark Rolston as Stef *Lila Finn as Homeless Woman *John Hateley as Purse Snatcher *Gage Tarrant as Hooker *Thomas Rosales, Jr. as Chet (as Tommy Rosales) *Brandon Smith as Flint *Wallace Merck as Gun Shop Owner *Stephen Lee as Officer Duffy *Robert DoQui as Sgt. Reed (as Robert Do'Qui) *Ken Lerner as Delaney *Jeff McCarthy as Holzgang *Nancy Allen as Anne Lewis *Linda Thompson as Mother with Baby *Brandon Smith as Chet (as Tommy Rosales) *Tzi Ma as Tak Akita *Wanda De Jesus as Estevez *Fabiana Udenio as Sunblock Woman Score Leonard Rosenman composed a completely new score the film, and did not reprise any of Poledouris's themes from the first film. The soundtrack album was released by Varèse Sarabande. The score received mixed reviews by critics and fans, many of whom complained about Rosenman's use of a choir chanting "Robocop." Reception This film received mixed reviews from critics and fans of the first film. While the special effects and action sequences are widely praised, a common complaint was that the film did not focus enough on RoboCop and his partner Lewis and that the film's human story of the man trapped inside the machine was ultimately lost within a sea of violence. This film was also partially disliked by actors Weller and Allen as they both thought it was a negative film to work on.needed In his review, Roger Ebert wrote "Cain's sidekicks include a violent, foul-mouthed young boy (Gabriel Damon), who looks to be about 12 years old but kills people without remorse, swears like Eddie Murphy, and eventually takes over the drug business... The movie's screenplay is a confusion of half-baked and unfinished ideas... the use of that killer child is beneath contempt..." Additionally, the movie "reset" RoboCop's character by turning him back into the monotone-voiced peacekeeper seen early in the first film (despite the fact that by the end of the first film, he had regained his human identity and speech mannerisms). Many were also critical of the child villain Hob; David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews stated, "That the film asks us to swallow a moment late in the story that features Robo taking pity on an injured Hob is heavy-handed and ridiculous (we should probably be thankful the screenwriters didn't have RoboCop say something like, 'Look at what these vile drugs have done to this innocent boy')." Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Unlike RoboCop, a clever and original science-fiction film with a genuinely tragic vision of its central character, Robocop 2 doesn't bother to do anything new. It freely borrows the situation, characters and moral questions posed by the first film." She further adds, "The difference between Robocop and its sequel, ... is the difference between an idea and an afterthought." She also expressed her opinion about the Hob character, "The aimlessness of Robocop 2 runs so deep that after exploiting the inherent shock value of such an innocent-looking killer, the film tries to capitalize on his youth by also giving him a tearful deathbed scene." The LA Times thought poorly of the movie too. RoboCop 2 currently has 35% positive reviews on the movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with 20 of 31 counted reviews giving it a "rotten" rating and an average score of 4.5 out of 10. The movie debuted at No 2 at the box Office. Box Office Robocop 2 debuted at No.2 at the box office. Trivia RoboCop 2 had the 2nd highest body count for a film in 1990, with 58 deaths. It was beaten only by Die Hard 2, with 162 deaths. (They cheated by having an aeroplane blow up, of course). The point-of-view shots from RoboCop include references to MS-DOS, while the point-of-view shots from RoboCop 2 feature a Apple MacIntosh-style interface, with a skull instead of the Apple logo. RoboCop's new directives are (in numerical order): - *DIRECTIVE 233: Restrain hostile feelings. *DIRECTIVE 234: Promote positive attitude. *DIRECTIVE 235: Suppress aggressiveness. *DIRECTIVE 236: Promote pro-social values. *DIRECTIVE 238: Avoid destructive behavior. *DIRECTIVE 239: Be accessible. *DIRECTIVE 240: Participate in group activities. *DIRECTIVE 241: Avoid interpersonal conflicts. *DIRECTIVE 242: Avoid premature value judgments. *DIRECTIVE 243: Pool opinions before expressing yourself. *DIRECTIVE 244: Discourage feelings of negativity and hostility. *DIRECTIVE 245: If you haven't got anything nice to say, don't talk. *DIRECTIVE 246: Don't rush traffic lights. *DIRECTIVE 247: Don't run through puddles and splash pedestrians or other cars. *DIRECTIVE 248: Don't say that you are always prompt when you are not. *DIRECTIVE 249: Don't be oversensitive to the hostility and negativity of others. *DIRECTIVE 250: Don't walk across a ballroom floor swinging your arms. *DIRECTIVE 254: Encourage awareness. *DIRECTIVE 256: Discourage harsh language. *DIRECTIVE 258: Commend sincere efforts. *DIRECTIVE 261: Talk things out. *DIRECTIVE 262: Avoid Orion meetings. *DIRECTIVE 266: Smile. *DIRECTIVE 267: Keep an open mind. *DIRECTIVE 268: Encourage participation. *DIRECTIVE 273: Avoid stereotyping. *DIRECTIVE 278: Seek non-violent solutions. In the scene where RoboCop was being reprogrammed by Dr. Faxx, the following hex numbers scroll quickly up the screen: "50 45 54 45 20 4B 55 52 41 4E 20 49 53 20 41 20 47 52 45 41 54 20 47 55 59". Converted to ASCII text, it reads: "PETE KURAN IS A GREAT GUY". Peter Kuran was the special effects photographer. Director Cameo: Kershner when Dr. Juliette Faxx is reviewing death row inmates' files on the computer, the first inmate image shown is that of Kershner. Cameo: Miller (One of the screenwriters) Frank the chemist who makes the Nuke drug for Cain. When RoboCop is in the Arcade, the majority of the video games are created by Data East. Data East was the creator behind the RoboCop video games. RoboCop 2/Cain's metal body has the symbol for nuclear radiation attached to the chest. For most of the film, Cain produced & distributed the designer drug Nuke and as a cyborg he is dependent on it. While displaying RoboCop's new directives at the police station, the cable plugged into his head is actually a water supply coupling for a toilet. In the segment when the police are raiding the nuke lab, RoboCop recreates the infamous "scope shot" where he shoots a sniper in the eye through the snipers own scope. This is based upon the real life exploits of Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock. The press conference where Mayor Kuzak shouts at the media was filmed in front of the east entrance to the Houston City Hall building (901 Bagby, Houston, Texas). The grand finale was filmed at Wortham Center in the Theater District in Houston. In several scenes, the white building which was seen in the background was the Alley Theatre; CGI imagery was used to create the visible damage during the final scenes. Although the producers loved Frank Miller's original version of the script, they quickly realized it was unfilmable as written. The final screen version was heavily rewritten and bears only a superficial resemblance to Miller's story. In 2003, Miller's screenplay was adapted into a comic book series titled, appropriately, "Frank Miller's RoboCop". The folding submachine guns used by the bad guys (specifically the character Hob) are based on the 9mm M21 Sub Machine Gun (designed by Dave Boatman), which itself is an updated version of the Ares FMG (Folding Machine Gun) developed by Eugene Stoner (weapons designer known for designing the AR-10 and AR-15 assault rifles - the latter of which adopted by the U.S. military as the M16 since 1962). The tiny "container" that held the drug Nuke was actually a saline re-moisturizer for contact lens wearers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The solution was dyed red and, in some shots, had a small needle sticking out after someone removes the covering. The opening sequence of the film, where RoboCop foils the gun shop robbery, was used as the early teaser trailer for the movie. The Chinese woman in Cain's limousine was saying in Mandarin: 'Take me with you, if not the police will catch me'. She is then shot so no worries there. The scene in which RoboCop opens fire around the head of someone who is smoking, after which he says 'Thank you for not smoking', was actually licensed and run as a public service announcement ahead of several different films in many non-smoking movie theaters during the summer movie season that year. In the shootout scene at the Nuke lab in the beginning of the film, RoboCop stops to reload his gun. This is one of the few times in the series where he is seen reloading his weapon. The pilot episode for "RoboCop" (1994) came from the first draft for RoboCop 2 (1990) written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. The OCP flags that appear throughout the movie are essentially Nazi flags with an OCP logo instead of the swastika. After the success of the first movie, 'Paul Verhoeven' and the original screen writers were approached for a sequel by the studio immediately. According to Verhoeven, he wasn't yet ready to make a sequel and wanted to wait until a proper script was written. He felt going forward so quickly would make it feel like he was attempting to cash in on a product. The studio did not agree, and hired Frank Miller to quickly write a new script and implement his own ideas. Ultimately the film failed, and Paul Verhoeven stated that had the studio gone with his ideas, it would have been far better than what was presented. The Robocop suit for this film was constructed purely of FiberGlass. This allowed Peter Weller far more freedom in terms of movement and gave the suit a far more metallic look. When Robocop walks away from the glass coffin supposedly containing Elvis, as well as pictures of Mother Theresa and Jesus on the wall, there is a photo of that other revered icon, Colonel Oliver North. When Faxx is attempting to upload the new commands into Robocop, the connections on either side of his helmet are BNC connectors. These are standard film equipment for connecting signal cables to monitors. Merchandise gallery File:R2Score.jpg|soundtrack File:2Novel.jpg|novelization File:R2Comic.jpg|comic adaptation Category:Feature Films